What kind of career can I have by studying animal behaviour and cognition ?

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The short answer? All kinds of things!!

Have you ever considered studying in a field of animal behaviour and wondered what kind of careers are possible following your studies? Or are you a current student in an area related to animal behaviour, welfare, psychology, cognition or human evolution interested in what options might be out there for you?

It is often a challenging field to break into, and not everyone decides to stay in academia or directly continue studying animal behaviour! But everyone is in agreement that the transferable skills learned from hands on experience working in animal behaviour, cognition and welfare research provides our researchers with many career options in the professional world. We caught up with our Living Links (LL) and Budongo Research Unit (BRU) alumni to catch up with past researchers to find out what they are doing now for their careers! From interns and research assistants who have supported the research here, to MSc and PhD students who conducted their thesis research at LL & BRU, and to the more experienced Postdoctoral researchers, all of them have gained skills and experience from working in this field that has taken them to their chosen career paths now and beyond.

From academic publishing companies, dog welfare charities, University lecturers, conservation and biodiversity management, research group leaders, training search and rescue rats, farming, filming, wildlife writing, Human Resources and continued research into animal and human minds, communication and welfare, the different roles are fascinating and very varied! Read on to see what our Alumni are doing now!

Christoph Völter: Research group leader / senior scientist at MPI-EVA (Leipzig) and Vetmeduni Vienna

I’m leading the Comparative Cognition research group within the department of Comparative Cultural Psychology at MPI-EVA (with a focus on great ape cognition). At the same time, I’m the PI of two research projects on canine cognition (with a focus on eye-tracking studies) at the Messerli Research Institute, Vetmeduni Vienna.

Zeynep Civelek: Research Integrity Specialist, Frontiers

After leaving academia, I sought a role that remained connected to science without focusing on research. This led me to a career as a specialist in scientific publishing, where I now contribute to advancing research from a different perspective. The open-access publication process involves specialised teams working collaboratively to make research available for everyone. My role involves ensuring adherence to ethical and publication standards in submissions to uphold the integrity of academic research. Additionally I collaborate with editors to investigate post-publication issues. I work remotely with an amazing and dedicated team of experts!

Elizabeth Warren: Postdoctoral research fellow at Johns Hopkins University

I worked on research with squirrel monkeys, capuchins and chimpanzees at Living Links and BRU (MSc/PhD). In my postdoc position now, I do research with great apes and with dogs, exploring questions like what they think about when they communicate, and whether they can make better decisions as groups than as individuals. I do my primate work in zoos like Maryland Zoo in Baltimore and Indianapolis Zoo, as well as Ngamba Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Uganda. With dogs, we work with the pets of people in our community right here in Baltimore! My supervisor is Chris Krupenye who is also BRU Alumni (see below!).

Shreejata Gupta: Postdoc at Institute for Language, Communication and the Brain, Aix-Marseille Université, Marseille, France

Having worked with monkeys and apes, examining their gestural communication, I acquired observational and experimental skills in ethology and comparative cognition. Using what I learnt from observing primates in the wild and captivity, I now apply the same methods to investigate preverbal gestures in human infants and test whether they are precursors to the linguistic co-speech gestures in human adults. Additionally, using tools like eye tracking (something I learnt with the chimps at Budongo trail) and neuroimaging techniques (EEG+fNIRS) I am looking at how infants develop their capacities of perception and comprehension of socially produced gestures.

Luke Townrow: PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins University (USA)

I first came to Edinburgh Zoo to work an internship with Professor Josep Call during my psychology undergraduate degree at Cardiff University. I stayed at the zoo for little under a year (cut short by COVID) but I managed to work for and learn from an incredible range of professors and research staff. I had opportunities to work with the chimpanzees, capuchin monkeys, squirrel monkeys and geladas! I met amazing people who I would later work for including Professor Katie Slocombe, before completing my masters with Professor Zanna Clay at Durham University on human empathy and perspective-taking. I am now a 3rd year PhD student at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, USA under the mentorship of Dr. Christopher Krupenye (below!) studying human and nonhuman primate theory of mind and social cognition. 

Elle Jordan: Data Science and Analytics Manager, Dogs Trust (charity sector)

I worked at Living Links & Budongo both for my PhD research with capuchins, and as a keeper. Following my PhD, finding a career where I could use my research skills to positively impact animal welfare led me to the Dogs Trust. In my current role I lead a team of scientists who are developing digitised operational systems and reporting tools to improve dog welfare in rehoming centres. Alongside this I also work on various dog-related research projects ranging from investigating dog behaviour and health post-adoption, to understanding what motivates individuals to adopt dogs.

Christopher Krupenye: Assistant Professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University

In my current role, I am fortunate to be able to continue research that is similar in nature to work I did at BRU but now including humans and pet dogs in addition to apes. I also teach a couple classes on the minds of infants and animals, mentor postdocs and postgraduate and undergraduate students on their research, and contribute various forms of service to my department, university, and the field. As one example, I am now an Associate Editor at an academic journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Donna Kean: PostDoc Researcher, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

After completing my PhD in primate cognition, I went on to work as a Behavioural Research Scientist at an NGO called APOPO, based in Tanzania, where I was training African giant pouched rats to do search and rescue, to detect disease, and to identify soil contamination for environmental clean-up projects!

Following this, I now work as a Post-doctoral Researcher at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, working in a team to build ‘Rat Villages’ used to conduct automated touchscreen behavioural tasks researching the evolution of cognition and welfare.

Abi Gwynn: Market Gardener at Soul Farm, previously role Programme Development and Liaison Officer at Borneo Nature Foundation.

Abi was a Research Assistant at Living Links working with the capuchin monkeys on a working memory experiment. She later studied for her Masters at Exeter University and conducted research on monitoring GI parasites in wild orang-utans and how this can help inform conservation. This led her to a previous role with the Borneo Nature Foundation as a Programme Development and Liaison Officer. Continuing in the nature industry Abi has now moved on to another passion of hers and works in the farming sector.

Matthias Allritz: PostDoc Researcher, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany

After working many years with the chimpanzees in the Budongo Research Unit I have moved back to the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and I am carrying out studies on cognition in all four great ape species at Leipzig Zoo, gorillas, orangutans, bonobos and of course chimpanzees! I am currently working on studies regarding communication and spatial cognition.

Anna Redly: Research Assistant (ADHD Research), Kings College London

I have a background in Neuroscience (BSc) and Comparative & Evolutionary Psychology (MSc). In my time at Living Links I really enjoyed working in research and public engagement and running an experiment with the capuchins, but realised after that mental health is my true passion! I worked for a year in the SEN department at a secondary school and am now a research assistant on a project about ADHD in adolescents.

Sophia Daoudi-Simison: Animal Behaviour Lecturer, Newcastle University

I have a permanent teaching position at Newcastle University which has allowed me to continue my research in primate behaviour and welfare. Having previously worked as a research assistant and student at Living Links, it’s quite a change to now be supervising my own projects. I’ve broadened my research to include geladas, marmosets, and chimpanzees, building on my earlier work with capuchins, squirrel monkeys, and lemurs. In addition to research in zoos, my work has taken me to the field in countries such as Suriname, Peru, and Costa Rica, enhancing my understanding of primate behaviour in various contexts. I also collaborate with Living Links on citizen science initiatives. I’m committed to advancing our knowledge in the field, particularly in ecologically valid methods that consider the behavioural ecology of the study species.

Leoma Williams: Biodiversity Consultant & Freelance writer for BBC Wildlife Magazine

I spent many cherished years working with the Edinburgh chimpanzees (MSc/PhD), as well as other intelligent animals such as ravens. Leaving academia I was very keen to find a job that allowed me to continue working with and for animals, in a way that felt practical and important. I now work as a biodiversity specialist for a large environmental consultancy. This involves working with international clients to help projects – be that infrastructure, energy, or resource extraction – to comply with environmental regulations, to ensure that negative impacts on biodiversity are avoided, minimised, mitigated, or compensated for. I use a lot of the skills I gained in academia in this role – analysing literature to gather important species data, writing clear and accurate reports,  presenting data, as well as fieldwork to survey animal populations.

I am also very lucky in that I am able to utilise my chimpanzee knowledge gained at Edinburgh Zoo in this role, as some projects involve analysing risks to wild chimpanzees and may involve conducting chimpanzee surveys in Africa in the future! In addition to this FT role I also write regular columns for BBC Wildlife Magazine on various nature topics, something I have been doing for several years and am happy to be able to keep as a fun sideline. I have a life-long love for animals (as can be seen from my wedding photo from this summer!) and  I feel very grateful to be able to talk, write, and think about animals every day, even outside of academia.

Amy Derrick: H&S advisor, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, nature conservation charity

I was at Living Links for a few months working as an intern research assistant for Donna Kean above, carrying out research with the capuchin monkeys. My plan was to find further research positions in the future, but after a bit of soul searching and working in the gardening industry, I realised that wasn’t the right path for me. However I knew I still wanted to stay somewhere within the natural world/research/conservation industry and so eventually found myself in the RSPB. Not in a direct conservation role, but instead working as a H&S advisor which involves me supporting the people and the work being carried out for essential conservation work in Scotland, which allows me to still feel satisfied that I’m doing my bit! I get to work at some beautiful locations, like the RSPB Abernethy Reserve pictured below!

Curious Capuchins and Clever Puzzles: Gabriella’s Research Comes to a Close.

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Gabriella’s study, “Strategic exploration in a problem-solving task by capuchin monkeys (Sapajus apella),” has now finished! This blog post serves to document the phases of the experiment and how the monkeys performed.

With regards to background literature, several studies have found that animals use information seeking to locate food. For example, Visalberghi and Néel (2003) found capuchin subjects use sound and/or weight of a nut to infer its contents (full or empty) by tapping or dropping the nuts.

Similarly, Hanus and Call (2011) found chimpanzees identify a target food item (juice) faster when the discriminative variable was causal (weight), rather than arbitrary (color), by lifting the bottle stimuli to find out which of five was rewarded.

Figure 1a (above). Matoury, Sol, and Anita investigate the wrapped PVC pipes in their enclosure.

Figure 1b (left). 100 prepped PVC pipes for one monkey group, for one session!

The question therefore remains whether nonhuman primates will strategically explore stimuli to determine the location of food. This study thus aimed to test if capuchin monkeys, after experience with stimuli containing food that rattles, exhibit strategic exploration (i.e., shake stimuli) to locate food, and critically, how this compares to exploration in conspecifics exposed to similar stimuli that do not rattle.

Phase 1 of the experiment ran from May-June 2024. Twice a week, Gabriella prepared both groups of monkeys 100 PVC pipes wrapped four times in paper and connected to straps for the keepers to attach to the platforms in their enclosures (Figure 1a; 1b; video 1). In both monkey groups, a fifth of the pipes contained food inside (Figure 2), and in the East group, the food rattled when shaken, but in the West, the food made no noise (video 2). The idea behind this design was to determine whether the East (and not the West) monkeys would come to explore the pipes strategically (e.g., shake the pipes to hear the rattle and identify the food).

Figure 2. Raisins, sunflower seeds, and corn were placed freely in the PVC pipes either for the East monkeys (left), or wrapped up tightly for the West monkeys (above).
Video 1: Monkeys in the East enclosure exploring their pipes.
Video 2: The West’s silent food pipe.

During each hour-long session, Gabriella stood outside with multiple cameras and live-coded the behavior of each monkey (Figure 3). This required identifying all individuals outside on each platform as they were all behaving simultaneously. Not an easy task!

Figure 3. Testing and live-coding an outdoor session.

After Phase 1, Phase 2 ran from July-September 2024. Here, individual monkeys were given their own bundle of five wrapped PVC pipes in the indoor cubicles. Similarly to Phase 1, one of the five pipes contained food, but in this phase, monkeys from both groups experienced food that rattled when shaken. The idea of this phase was to investigate whether the East monkeys (those with experience with the sound condition) could identify the food pipe quicker than West monkeys, and if so, if they had developed strategies to do so. Excitingly, some of the East may have developed strategies to identify the food pipe, such as Cayenne’s wobble method (video 3).

Video 3. To locate the pipe with food, Cayenne seems to wobble the pipes one at a time.

Critically, however, at this time we cannot say for certain if the East (and not West) developed strategic curiosity techniques to find the food. But watch this space for when Gabriella publishes the study towards her PhD to find out how the monkey groups compared!

From Bundles to Behaviour: My Living Links Internship Explored

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Hello! I’m Belles Cherney, and for the past two months, I’ve had the incredible opportunity to intern at Living Links and the Budongo Research Unit (BRU). As my time here comes to an end, I’d love to share what this unforgettable experience has been like for me.

While I’ve been here, I’ve been working on two projects: one with the chimpanzees, and one with the brown capuchin monkeys. During this internship, I’ve been lucky to experience what it is like to work as a researcher. The work that the researchers at Living Links and the BRU do everyday is so varied, including things such as gathering and inputting data, preparing experimental apparatus and objects for the animals to handle, and helping pilot experiment. This means I’ve spent lots of my time helping to work out some of the kinks that appear while starting a new study!

With the capuchin monkeys, I’m working with Gabriella Smith to study curiosity. We want to know if, when offered bundles of multiple identical looking objects- with only one in five objects having food inside which makes a rattling sound when moved- will the monkeys learn to use the sound cues and show strategic searching behaviours to discover which objects make a sound? Will they learn to shake the wrapped objects in a bundle to find the food?

With the chimpanzees, I’m working with Dr Aurelien Frick and Dr Emma McEwen while we study the effects of social presence on a chimp’s working memory. We want to know if the presence of visitors or other chimps impact how well a chimp can concentrate and remember where we’ve hidden the grape inside of a box. Will the chimps perform worse on the more difficult trials of this task when there are many visitors watching, or if there are many chimps in the room?

The most tedious part of it all is that experiments don’t just happen without the effort required to prepare for them. Some require less work than others, but the curiosity project has required Gabriella and I to wrap 400 objects a week for the bundles. They consist of a PVC tube, 4 specially wrapped pieces of paper, and a fabric strap zip tied tight around it. We spent around 16 hours a week doing this, and it’s exhausting work! I had already been aware of all the work that goes into conducting an official study, but I most certainly have a better appreciation for it now!

While I’ve been here, I’ve learned so much about the field of animal cognition, as well as gotten a better understanding of what it means to be a full time researcher. I have even helped out with public engagement events teaching visitors about the research we do! I’ve been welcomed by the amazing team of researchers, keepers, and administrators here at the zoo. Everyone encourages me to learn and to try everything, and this has truly been one of the best experiences of my life. Working with the animals so much every day, I’ve gotten to build relationships with the individual animals and have gotten to know who each of them are on a personal level.

My favourite chimpanzee, Lucy, is quiet, watchful, loves her food, and she knows what she wants and how to get it. My favourite capuchin, Sol, is a bit of a loner. She struggles with some physical tasks, and moves through life slowly and carefully – that is, until some sass is required! Then all bets are off. These animals have become my friends, along with the spectacular group of people I’ve gotten to work with, and I couldn’t be more grateful or more in awe of what I’ve gotten to be a part of this summer.

“Busy Boards” as primate enrichment

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Hello, my name is Nailah and I am an Experienced Animal Keeper on the Budongo/Living Links section at RZSS Edinburgh Zoo. As a keeper looking after the research monkeys at Living Links, part of our role is helping to enhance animal welfare by proving stimulating and exciting enrichment for the monkey groups. Usually this is food-based enrichment hidden in objects, often challenging for the monkeys to extract so that they have to use their minds to get the food out! However, other types of enrichment can be made for the monkeys that is not focused on food- I have been working on designing and creating a new enrichment for the Living Links squirrel monkeys called a Busy Board! 

Nailah busy creating her boards from mixed materials!

For some time now, busy boards have been designed and implemented with human toddlers in mind. The idea behind a busy board is for children to be exposed to a host of different textures, noises, colours and unusual items all part of one item to play with. Even though they were initially intended for children, the advantages mentioned below are also beneficial to non-human primates. I wanted to recreate an interactive activity board that I had previously made for other species of primates for the monkeys at Living Links. I attached various items on this board that food can be hidden in for the monkeys, such as square knots made out of old firehose, pieces of hose pipe, brush heads and even old socks!

Pictured here is the West group of squirrel monkeys having their first look at their new busy board!

So what are the benefits of a busy board?

  • It may facilitate the development of brain neurons. Sensory play aids in the physical growth of the brain and strengthens the pathways between neurons in the brain
  • Sensory play is closely linked to cognitive development, problem-solving abilities, and fine and gross motor skills
  • Sensory play enhances an individual’s memory through practice. By interacting with different textures, tastes, and smells, primates use their senses to strengthen and build their cognitive and motor memories
  • Every time a primate touches an object that is cold, sticky, wet, or has different textures, they are expanding on their prior knowledge of these properties.
  • Through sensory play, primates can associate new objects to similar ones they have already encountered by using their brain’s ability to recognise characteristics in objects and sensations. We have had researchers test this in our monkeys in past research projects!
Squirrel monkeys in their outdoor enclosure exploring new objects in a past research study.

Living Links Newsletter – March 2024

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Welcome to the March edition of the Living Links newsletter – your source of all things monkey and more!

What’s new at Living Links?

Research

Living Links researchers Dr Emma McEwen and Andreea Miscov, who have been running the previously mentioned VR experiment, are now replicating this experiment in a more traditional physical cup task. Instead of virtual fruit hiding in virtual hedges, there are real treats hiding under cups on a table in front of the capuchins. They will directly compare the monkey’s performance in the VR versus the physical task to see if the VR version is representative. Carlos, one of our East capuchins who is known as a great research participant, has been doing especially well at this exciting new task!

A typical cup game set up

Carlos relaxing outside

 

Dr Emma McEwen has also had a paper published on research that was completed at the Budongo Research Unit, our chimpanzee research centre at Edinburgh Zoo- congratulations Emma!

The study asks to what extent do humans and apes share the cognitive mechanisms that support optimal coordination and collaboration? They created a tool handover experiment to assess whether joint action planning in chimpanzees reflects similar patterns to humans.

Chimpanzees’ chosen handover locations shifted towards the location of the experimenter’s free or unobstructed hand, even though their individual half of the task was unobstructed. These findings indicate that chimpanzees and humans may share common cognitive mechanisms or predispositions that support joint action!

If you would like to read the full article, it can be found here.

Velu caring for his little sister

 

Velu taking part in research

 

Visitor Experience

Have you ever wanted to get involved with the research at Living Links? We believe that anyone can be a scientist, and in the coming months we will be inviting you to join in on some observational research!

After some training to help you tell the monkey species apart, we will ask you to count the number of each species you can see in designated zones around their enclosures.

This data will help contribute to a longitudinal study on our mixed species enclosure. Where does each species spend most of their time? Do the squirrel monkeys and capuchins hang out together? Can areas of the enclosure be improved to better suit the monkeys?  We can use this information to better inform the care of the monkeys long-term. Keep an eye out for future updates!

Our researchers ready to help.

This could be you one day!

Monkey Business

The gelada enclosure at the zoo is undergoing an exciting refurbishment! New visitor windows are being installed for a better view of the large gelada paddock, and the zoo are creating wonderful new rock shelters, climbing stumps for the playful geladas to leap between, and installing large tree trunks for them to climb up high. The geladas are going to love this, and we can’t wait for them to explore the larger and more fun enclosure. The ground will remain muddy for a while until the grass can recover, but the geladas will also really enjoy digging through this for worms! Watch this space and hopefully you can see the geladas up close soon!

 

Monkey of the Month

Our monkey of the month for March is Pixie! And the reason? For learning to turn!

It might sound simple, but learning to turn in the virtual environment touchscreen task can be challenging for the monkeys and is an important part of their training. Pixie, the youngest capuchin in the West group, had been lagging behind the others in her training, not quite understanding how to turn.

She has gotten quite confident in using the VR space to collect the fruit that she sees directly in front of her, but this month, to the delight of our researchers, she has discovered that there might be even more hiding if she moves left and right instead of straight ahead!

Did you know…

Humans, apes, African and Asian monkeys all have trichromatic or normal colour vision, meaning we can all perceive red, green, and blue light.

South American monkeys are however mostly dichromats. For capuchin monkeys, most females have trichromatic vision like us, whereas males’ vision is entirely dichromatic, being unable to see either red or green light. The only way you can tell which type of colour blindness they have is by genetic testing. What we did instead to make sure our research is accessible to all our monkeys was to simulate both red and green colour blindness and choose a fruit in a colour that could be perceived by both types. The main aim was for the monkeys to be able to see the fruit against the background of the grass and hedges for our VR trials, rather than to just be able to see colourful things.

Our simulation was created using human colour blindness parameters, so it is only an approximation and not an exact rendering of capuchin colour vision.

A & D show normal (trichromatic) vision, B & E shows how it is perceived by people who are unable to perceive Red. C&F show how it appears to those who cannot perceive green.

Question of the Month

Q: Do all the monkeys participate in research?

A: Participating in research is completely voluntary. The monkeys can choose whether or not they want to join in, and they are under no obligation to. Some of our monkeys really enjoy the research (and the rewards!) and choose to participate most days! Others, such as the low ranking Mekoe, are a little more nervous and choose their opportunities carefully. The youngest monkeys, like Jaci, Coquito and Calabaza, build up confidence as they get used to the cubicle area. Jaci has just participated for the first time recently!

Researcher of the Month

Our Researcher of the month is Alanna Cuvelier! Alanna completed her undergraduate degree in Psychology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and is currently studying for her MSc in Psychology of Individual Differences at Edinburgh University. Her research is focused on evolutionary and comparative psychology, in terms of both personality traits and intelligence.

While at Living Links, she will be conducting an observational study examining whether personality traits influence play partner choice in  brown capuchins. Previous research suggests that capuchins prefer to play with individuals that are similar to them, be it in age, sex or rank. Does personality also play a role? She predicts that similar personalities will attract each other to carry out play behaviors. Alanna will get the expert opinions of the keepers to assess 54 (!) different personality traits in the monkeys including:

Curious: subject has a desire to see or know about  objects, devices, or other individuals.  This includes a desire to know about  the affairs of other individuals  that  do not directly concern the subject.

Lazy: the monkey is relatively inactive, indolent, or slow moving and avoids energetic activities.

Playful: the monkey is eager to engage in lively, vigorous, sportive, or acrobatic behaviors with or without other individuals.

 

A curious bunch!

Playtime at Living Links

Living Links Newsletter – February 2024

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Welcome to the February edition of the Living Links newsletter,

your source of all things monkey and more!

What’s new at Living Links?

Research

Three new researchers have recently joined the Living Links team; Krishan Muir (University of St Andrews), Agnes Hivet (ENS of Lyon) and Alanna Cuvelier (University of Edinburgh). Alanna and Krishan are conducting observational projects with the capuchins (learn more about Krishan’s project further below!) and Agnes is a visiting placement student who will help out on a number of projects, learning all about research at Living Links. You will hear more about their work in future newsletters, so watch this space!

New researchers Krishan, Agnes and Alanna

This month has seen a lot of  discussion around experimental apparatus design and pilot testing of materials amongst our researchers! Getting apparatus design right for both the experiment and for the monkeys is a very challenging but fun process. From the types of materials used, to the angles needed for food to slide down a tube, or how high a monkey can safely lift an object, getting apparatus right is a vital part of the research process. Learn more by reading our blog – click below!

Read more about the challenges of experimental apparatus design here!

Visitor Experience

As part of our colourful new look at Living Links you will notice the new Living Links Tree timeline in the central visitor area! This cleverly designed display by the RZSS Interpretation team tells the story of the amazing people who founded Living Links and the development of the research centre over the years. You can find QR codes dotted throughout which features some of our amazing accomplishments.

Monkey of the Month

Our (cheeky) monkey of the month for February is East group capuchin Cayenne! Cayenne is 5 years old and while he loves research, he does sometimes make it a little difficult for the researchers! He often keeps returning to the cubicles after he has already had his turn, and likes to use the area as his personal playground, sometimes banging the slides in play and scaring the other monkeys testing! His enthusiasm is infectious though, and with time he will learn to let other monkeys have their own time alone in the cubicles to do their training, testing and receive their own treats!  We love how much he enjoys research!

Question of the Month

Q: How do the Living Links monkeys get their names?

A: When a new baby is born in Living Links, the keeper that finds the infant is allowed to choose their name! A very special privilege!

You might notice that most of the monkeys have names inspired by South America, the region where these monkeys are native to! For example, Santi is named after Santiago, the capital of Chile.

Researcher of the Month

Our Researcher of the Month is Krishan Muir, an undergraduate student at the University of St Andrews who is conducting an observational study at Living Links.

While many of our researchers run experiments in our specially designed research rooms, other researchers study the natural behaviours of the monkeys in their enclosure. Krishan’s research focuses on whether capuchin monkeys exhibit contagious behaviours, like humans do. Krishan will be assessing yawning and scratching through an observational study of the capuchins from the East enclosure. Before starting any observational research, our researchers have to undergo the difficult task of learning to accurately identify all the monkeys who live in the wing in which they are researching. This skill will allow Krishan to identify which monkey viewed one of the contagious behaviours and allows him to determine if their perception of said yawn or scratch triggered them to yawn or scratch themselves.

Manuel yawning and Flojo watching

Living Links Newsletter – January 2024

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Welcome to the January edition of the Living Links newsletter,

your source of all things monkey and more!

What’s new at Living Links?

Research

Virtual reality (VR) touchscreen update! The capuchins have been hard at work completing the training phases and Dr Emma McEwan and Andreea Miscov are now running the first VR experiment!

Emma and Andreea have converted a classic physical memory cup game experiment into a VR environment game; instead of cups there are hedges! The capuchins start on a ‘hilltop’ looking down at the hedges and they can see which contains the fruit reward- however as they walk downhill towards the hedges their view of the fruit disappears and they must remember where it was! The distance of the hedges represent the memory time delays from the original experiment.

East group youngster Matoury has excelled at the experiment and is soaring ahead of the others! Click on the video below to see Matoury in action and an example of the three conditions representing the 0, 15 and 30 second delays in the original cup game!

Visitor Experience

We have some new QR codes at Living Links which visitors can scan to be linked to our monkey ID pages on our website- learn our monkeys names, see how old they are, and have a go at trying to spot them in real life! We hope to make a more interactive version of this ID guide and an ID game for visitors, so watch this space!

Click for ID Guides!

We also have some new videos playing at Living Links that give visitors an overview of what Living Links is all about and some of the topics our researchers are exploring. Click the video below to watch our Living Links Tour! The videos are also now hosted on our Living Links Website which you can view by clicking the button link below the tour video.

Click here to watch the rest of our core videos and learn more about Living Links and our areas of research!

Monkey Business
The research team enjoyed a well-deserved two-week break over the holidays. Throughout this period, the committed keepers continued caring for the Living Links monkeys, making sure they experienced the warmth of the holiday season. Our animals were treated to special personalised Christmas gifts from the keepers containing their favourite treats!

 

Monkey of the Month

At 28 years old Lana is the oldest capuchin in the West group, and in fact across all our monkeys! She used to be the dominant female of the group and had little time to dedicate to research with so much to keep an eye on in the group! Last year she unfortunately lost her position to the younger mother- daughter duo Pedra and Pixie. However a plus side of this is she has had more time for research and this past couple of months her attendance at research sessions has sky rocketed!

Question of the Month

Q: What’s the trick to telling the monkeys apart?

A: The squirrel monkeys make it easy with their stylish necklaces, each adorned with either one or two beads for identification. In our West Group, Toomi rocks a single pink bead, while Beni sports two pink beads and Vallen has a black and a red bead! It’s a fashionable and functional way to recognize our lively bunch! The capuchins on the other hand we have to learn by facial features…see the links in our Visitor update above to learn more!

Researcher of the Month

We introduced Gabriella Smith last month and her first experiment, “Susceptibility and physio-behavioral reactions to cognitive illusions in capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella)” is now almost complete. Before starting the experiment, Gabriella had to determine individual food preferences, that is, the high, medium, and low value foods, and found that most monkeys preferred raisin to grape and both of these to maize flake. Once food preferences were established,  monkeys could move onto the experiment, a bait-and-switch magic trick in which a food item appears to be dropped into a tower and then the tower is removed and the food is revealed on top wood shavings. Here, each monkey experiences four trials, the first and last with no change from the food dropped in to the food revealed, while the middle two trial involve a “magical” food change!

In addition to behavioral responses (e.g., vocalizations; digging time), Gabriella is also using thermal imaging to see if monkeys change temperature in response to experiencing a surprise magic trick. Previous research suggests that, in response to a positive event (such as, in this case, the change of a maize flake to a raisin), the temperature of primates’ noses will drop, while that of their eyes will rise. In a negative event surprise (such as a raisin to maize flake change), the literature suggests the upper lip temperature will increase.

Gabriella has also performed this study in kea parrots and Goffin’s cockatoos and found that both species were susceptible to the illusion, with the kea being more likely to dig and cockatoos to raise their crests in the magic trials. This species comparison between parrots and monkeys offers a valuable lens into the emotional expression of surprise in the animal kingdom.

 

Living Links Newsletter – December 2023

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Welcome to the December edition of the Living Links newsletter,

your source of all things monkey and more!

What’s new at Living Links?

Research

Living Links welcomes Gabriella Smith, a visiting PhD student from the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, Austria. In Vienna, Gabriella has studied themes of curiosity such as violations of expectations, explanation seeking, and strategic curiosity in both kea and cockatoo parrots. At Living Links, Gabriella will be examining similar themes in the capuchin monkeys, such as how they react and seek information following a bait-and-switch magic trick, as well as whether the monkeys search strategically to find food that rattles. By utilising experimental methods such as classic cubicle testing, thermal imaging, and observation from the viewing decks, Gabriella aims to tackle questions such as “what does curiosity look like in different species?” and “what emotions are involved following a surprise in animals?”.

Visitor Experience

We are excited to announce a new member of to our team at Living Links! Jessica is joining us from The University of St Andrews. She is currently working as an administrator with a focus on public engagement and research impact. Her primary focus is getting the word out about all the great work done at Living Links and BRU, including through this newsletter!

We would also like to share Postdoc researcher Eva Reindl’s research video for visitors, describing her interest in primates’ understanding of sequences; we featured Eva as our ‘Researcher of the Month’ in Novembers newsletter! Click on the video on the right to learn more about Eva’s research topic.

Monkey of the Month

Our monkey of the month is Jorge!

He truly stands out in the keeper training sessions. Initially, Jorge was quite the elusive participant, rarely choosing to attend sessions. When he did venture inside, he was quite shy, making it a challenge to even offer him a treat without sending him scurrying away. However, after a few months, Jorge blossomed into one of our top participants, radiating confidence and proving to be an absolute standout in the group.

Did you know…    

Brown capuchin monkeys are pretty smart cookies! They’ve been known to use stones as tools to crack open difficult foods such as nuts or shellfish. You may spot our monkeys using stones, bamboo or logs to bash other objects in their enclosure. Though Squirrel monkeys have been known to use tools, they do so less than their larger friends.

Question of the Month

Q: How do capuchin monkeys communicate with each other?

A: Capuchin monkeys communicate using a variety of vocalisations, facial expressions, and body language. One interesting aspect is their use of different vocal calls to convey specific information, such as warning calls for potential predators or indicating the location of food sources.

Keeper of the Month

This month we are highlighting one of the brilliant keeping team that our researchers work so closely with at Living Links, and the training activities that are so important to their role.

Kenna Valles has been a keeper on the Living Links & Budongo section at Edinburgh Zoo for three years, working with chimpanzees, gibbons, bagot goats, capuchins and squirrel monkeys. She has a BSc in Animal Behaviour and an MSc in Applied Animal Behaviour and Welfare. She has been a zookeeper for five years, having also worked at Shepreth Wildlife Park, and previously worked in the field of conservation and wildlife rehabilitation. She is also a representative on the Animal Welfare Advisory Group for RZSS, and important role within the zoo.

Kenna is very enthusiastic about animal training and has spearheaded new training initiatives at Living Links. Animal training is an important tool in animal care, as it allows keepers and vets to carry out husbandry and veterinary procedures more easily and in a manner that is less stressful for the animals. She has been particularly successful with recent training of the squirrel monkeys to improve their voluntary entering of a ‘holding pen’ in their enclosure used for veterinary procedures. While the year before only one ‘West’ monkey entered this area voluntarily for annual vaccinations, through positive reinforcement training, Kenna and the team have successfully encouraged the whole ‘West’ group to voluntarily enter the holding pen for this years vaccinations! Once locked in the area their behaviour was noticeably less stressed and more confident than previous years too- a great success! Read more in Kenna’s blog post below!

 

Click here to learn more about the training Kenna and the team has worked on in Kenna’s blog for our Living Links website!

Living Links Newsletter – November 2023

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Welcome to the November edition of the Living Links newsletter

Your source of all things monkey and more!

What’s new at Living Links?

Research

Over the past year we have been working with a new species at RZSS Edinburgh Zoo- the wonderful geladas! Gelada’s are a unique ‘grazing’ primate found only in Ethiopia, Africa and they are specialist feeders of grass, roots and tubers, collected or dug up by their nimble hands. Naturally they can be found in large troops of hundreds individuals, made up of multiple small harems led by dominant males. Here at the zoo we have a harem of 24 individuals, led by dominant male Negus.

After taking time to work out who is who and how to identify them, we are now excitingly  training them to come up to the fence and take part in research! And so far they love it! They are doing simple cup games to get them used to the process of choosing a cup and receiving a food reward, and learning to take turns doing this. Watch this space as we will be reporting more on gelada research in the near future- they are intelligent and interesting primates and we think they will be very successful at research games in the future!

Visitor Experience

Some of our regular visitors may have noticed that Living Links has recently undergone a change in appearance- after 15 years it felt time for a refresh! Led by Research Fellow Anna Redly, Director Professor Amanda Seed and RZSS Interpretation officer Krystyna Keir, the RZSS and University of St Andrews teams have worked closely together to design and implement a fresh, fun and colourful new look to Living Links. Read more below!

Click here to read more about our Living Links new look and upcoming further changes!

 

Monkey Business

Our monkeys are meeting two new keeper team members this month- Nailah and Amie have joined the Living Links and Budongo keeper team and are training at the research centre this month. As well as having to learn the names and faces/necklace ID’s of over 60 monkeys (!), the new keepers have to learn all the daily husbandry tasks associated with the successful running of a mixed species primate exhibit, as well as meet the researchers and learn how research activities run smoothly around this. Welcome Nailah and Amie to the team!

Monkey of the Month

Our monkey of the month is Flora!

She wears a red bead and is one of the most friendly squirrel monkeys. She is one of the more curious monkeys and from a past research study on personality was found to be one of the monkeys most interested in coming up to the visitor windows to say hello!

Did you know…

In the wild, squirrel monkeys spend 99% of their time in trees and shrub, so we’ve made sure to include lots of tall structures in their enclosure for them to jump between!

 

Question of the Month

Q: How many researchers can work at Living Links?

A: We can have 4 researchers working at the same time in our experimental research rooms, one with each of the monkey groups as there is a set of testing cubicles for each species on each side of the building (West and East). In addition to this we can have up to 4 observational researchers studying the monkeys natural behaviour from the big balcony areas. We also support interns and volunteers from time to time who assist projects needing an extra hand, and we share the Living Links office space with researchers from the Budongo Research Unit too, so often we have around 12-15 researchers about at any one time, making a wonderful research environment for shared experiences and expertise!

Researcher of the Month

Our researcher of the month this month is PhD candidate Poppy Lambert.

Poppy Lambert is a PhD student in the Comparative Cognition Unit of the Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Oxford and a MSc in Science Communication from Imperial College London. In Austria, she has studied innovation in cockatoos and young children and has become interested in cognition related to weight information.

She has joined the team at Living Links for a year to investigate how easily the capuchin monkeys can learn to choose between light and heavy objects. She has run this exact experiment with the cockatoos already, and wants to compare their performances. To begin with she is getting the monkeys familiar with different material she wants to use. Keep your eyes peeled and you may see her with the monkeys and her weight game in the coming months!

 

Living Links Newsletter – October 2023

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Welcome to the October edition of the Living Links newsletter

your source of all things monkey and more!

What’s new at Living Links?

Research

This month, the monkeys will be lifting weights! No, not by hitting the gym – our capuchins will be taking part in a new project where they must distinguish between light and heavy objects.

Led by researcher Poppy Lambert, the study aims to measure the ability of capuchins to choose either the heavier or the lighter object of a pair in a simple discrimination task, and compare this to a similar study with Goffin cockatoos. This study will help us understand more about how the minds of these different animals evolved, to make theories of how natural ecology and a species’ lifestyle shapes the way their mind works.

Visitor Experience

Last month, we hosted a special event at the zoo for the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Curious series- Curious Primate Minds! RSE, RZSS and the University of St Andrews came together to run a special day for participants to learn more about the kinds of research taking place at the two primate research centres onsite at Edinburgh Zoo; Living Links and the Budongo Research Unit.

Enthusiastic participants had a tour of the wonderful research facilities, watched live research in action, and then joined a special workshop with our lovely researchers to learn more about how exactly we explore primate minds using voluntary experiments, what kinds of technology we use in research, and how we communicate science to zoo visitors and beyond.

Monkey Business

Our capuchins and squirrel monkeys have some new nest baskets and shelters installed in their outdoor enclosures. The keeper team have made the high up nest baskets by weaving together old fire hose, a popular material for zoo enrichment and structures, and the onsite P&E team made the large wooden shelter boxes. The Gardens team helped install them last week- not an easy task getting structures like these up high for the monkeys! A collaborative effort across multiple departments, and two groups of very happy monkeys!

Monkey of the Month

Our monkey in the spotlight this month is Coquito! Coquito means ‘little coconut’ but look how much he has grown already! Pictured with his mother Agnes here when he was just a few months old, and below this month at 2 years old, Coquito is now getting to the age where he is exploring the research cubicles and taking part in his first research sessions! He is very curious and very happy to get raisins for target training- an easy task we use for training the monkeys- and is re-visiting the cubicles more and more. It wont be long before he takes part in his first research experiment once his confidence and concentration levels are high. Coquito is part of our East capuchin group and you can spot him playing with the other youngsters- he is quite easy to identify as he has a dark face, a large upper head, distinct white patches below his black hairline, and close together orange eye, which he has inherited from his father Kato.

Question of the Month

Q: Do the capuchin and squirrel monkeys ever groom each other?

A: Actually no- squirrel monkeys in fact don’t groom at all, even one another. They instead use vocalisations and body touching, particularly with their tail, to stay close to one another and communicate. The capuchins on the other hand can be seen grooming one another all the time. In other multi-species primate groups, you sometimes see young individuals of one species ‘practicing’ their grooming techniques on another species, but we have not seen this at Living Links yet. More often we see the cheeky youngsters, like Coquito featured above, trying to pull the tails of the squirrel monkeys in play!

 

Researcher of the Month

This month, the researcher in the spotlight is Dr Eva Reindl who is a joint postdoctoral researcher with Durham University and the University of St Andrews.

Eva is broadly interested in learning which cognitive and social factors differentiate humans from their closest living relatives, the great apes. She is interested in social learning, culture, tool use, memory, and problem-solving. Her most recent work investigates how humans and other primates learn about sequences, and for this study she works with four species at Edinburgh Zoo; our squirrel monkeys and capuchins, the chimpanzees, and human children visiting the zoo!

She studied Psychology for both her BSc and MSc in Germany before embarking on a PhD in Psychology at the University of Birmingham here in the UK, leading to several lecturing and postdoctoral positions. She is a valued contributor to our public engagement events here at the zoo and the squirrel monkeys love her! They still get excited when she passes their window, even though her study has finished with them now!

 

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